International Adoptions Enrich Lives In Warsaw Community
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By David [email protected]
What they found exceeded their dreams.
Wednesday afternoon, some of those families gathered for a group photo and to tell their stories.
There are about 25 faculty members at WCS whose families have adopted.
David Hoffert, WCS chief academic officer, said, “The importance of this is our mission statement, ‘to inspire and equip all students to continuously acquire and apply knowledge and skills while pursuing their dreams and enriching the lives of others.’ These kids not only had their lives enriched, but also the lives of the parents and the school community have been enriched.”
David would know. He and his wife, Rachael, adopted two boys from Ethiopia, Robinson, 6, and Roosevelt, 2.
“We were walking out of church one day. The message was ‘Big World, Little Me.’ Our son, (Ryun), was 2 years old at the time. It hit us we needed to adopt so we went to the agency the next day,” David recalled.
Ethiopia was a new track for international adoptions. The Hofferts looked at some pictures and knew it was the place to go. Nine months later, they were in Ethiopia.
Rachael remembers bringing Robinson home. He was very malnourished, like the starving children shown on television.
“We knew we’d find ourselves back in Ethiopia. We just watched the doors open and close again,” David said.
The second adoption took approximately three years, but they brought Roosevelt home last year.
“I think it’s good to have two brothers from the same country,” Ryun said.
Rachael said the neat thing about WCS is that the teachers are open to celebrating the heritage of these children.
David agreed, noting how welcoming the community as a whole is to adoption.
“It’s taught us so much. When we went to Ethiopia the first time, our thinking was we were going to change the world. The fact is, the world changed us,” David said.
He said they came back changed because they saw how the world really works. Thousands of children are malnourished and in need of adoption. In countries like Ethiopia, Rachael said, there’s famine, drought and diseases like HIV and AIDS. She said they came back more compassionate because of the children.
“We hope to teach them as much as they taught us,” David concluded.
WCS 2013 Teacher of the Year Andy Bass and his wife, Dawn-Marie, have four children. Their oldest, Anjali, is 14 and adopted from India. Twelve-year-old Jacob was adopted from Ghana. Both have hearing impairments, but the Bass family knew that before adopting them.
Jacob also is a rescued slave.
“He lost his hearing in slavery so he wears hearing aids. We adopted him because he was hearing impaired and I’m an audiologist,” Dawn-Marie stated.
She said they’re in the process of adopting a boy, Christian, from Ghana who took care of Jacob while they were slaves.
“When you’re a slave, if you can’t hear, you get beaten. Christian was Jacob’s ears so he knew what to do and he didn’t get in trouble. Those boys need to be together. They’re not brothers, but they’re like family. We just love our family,” said Dawn-Marie.
The Bass family doesn’t know how long Jacob was a slave, but he was rescued at 8 years old, and he became a part of their family at 10.
Andy said there have been challenges along the way, but God has taken care of them.
Dawn-Marie added there are 7,000 to 10,000 children in slavery in Ghana. Touch A Life Foundation rescues the kids, and she encouraged people to visit their website at www.touchalifekids.org
Adopting children from Haiti started about three decades ago for the Neff family.
Madison Elementary teacher Honey Lou Neff adopted her son, Lenny, 30 years ago from Haiti.
“My kids fell in love with him. We went down twice a year. My kids kept asking if we could bring him home. There was a special bond with him. We believe it’s God’s plan. It’s meant to be. It’s a blessing,” Honey Lou said.
Her daughter, Edgewood Middle School teacher Veronica Helser, and Veronica’s husband Ryan, adopted two children from Haiti, Jacne, 16, and Loundia, 11.
“We do a lot of work in Haiti,” Veronica said. “... We met them six years ago. We just fell in love with them immediately.”
Haiti requires at least one adopting parent to be 35 years old. As soon as Ryan turned 35, the adoption paperwork was filed in Haiti. Every time they returned to Haiti, they visited the children. The adoption became final in April 2012.
“I was very excited because I have known the children for five years. It’s exciting to finally bring them back to the U.S.,” Honey Lou said.
“Hopefully, you set out to bless people, to help people, but they become the huge blessing in your life,” Veronica said. “They helped start our family.”
Along with the adoption of Jacne and Loundia, Veronica also gave birth to Brayden within the last year.
“It was really good. I was excited about it, to meet my new family,” Loundia said. She added she felt very welcomed into her new home.
In July, she went back with her new family to Haiti. She feels comfortable there and here, but noticed Haiti looks a lot smaller than before.
God willing, Veronica said they hope to adopt again.
Willie and Jennifer Bradley adopted Max, 13, from Haiti, but neither one ever had any plans on adopting any children.
Jennifer, who works in the special needs department at Warsaw Community High School, went on a missions trip with Touch Of Life Church in 2010. During the trip, she felt her heart was in the wrong place.
“I kept praying to God for a connection. Why was I there?” she said.
The next morning, she got off the bus and Max was standing in a corner by himself. He had helped her the previous day. She felt God had singled Max out for her. At first, she said, maybe she was just supposed to sponsor him through his school. But it felt more than that. Max has a very sweet spirit. Returning to the United States, Jennifer couldn’t forget about Max. She wanted to adopt him.
At first, Willie said no. “I had no intentions of adopting Max or a child period,” Willie said. “I didn’t see how that was going to work financially. For me, it was all selfish reasons. Through prayer, God speaks in different ways and he shed light on the situation.”
On March 15, 2012, Max came home with the Bradleys. He still makes contact with his family in Haiti, through phone calls and photos. On spring back, he’s going back to visit Haiti.
“It was very hard to do it,” Max said of the change, but he’s learning and he has good teachers at Edgewood.
Local resident and Haitian Frank Courtois has been very instrumental through the whole process, Jennifer said. Besides translation assistance, he also makes sure Max knows of his heritage.
Special education teacher Pam Vosler and her husband Marc didn’t think they were going to be able to have children, so they started researching adoption. They decided to adopt from China because their ages – 45 and 49 respectively – wouldn’t be a factor.
Then Pam got pregnant with their son, Max. But they pressed on with the adoption, which took three years.
“I felt like we started a journey before Max and I didn’t want to let it go. I wanted to follow through with the commitment,” Pam said.
China matched them up with Lucy, who was only 10 months old at the time.
“They did a great job,” Marc said.
Lucy is musical, and the Vosler family is, too, Pam noted.
Neena Burgher is a special education teacher at Lincoln Elementary. She and her husband adopted two children from Haiti, thanks to the Helser family, who they do a lot of missions work with in Haiti.
The Burgher boys are biological brothers.
“We didn’t have kids, so we don’t know what it’s like to do one at a time,” she joked. “It felt like it was what God wanted us to do.”
Roger and Holly Grossman adopted Hannah from China, bringing her home in October 2010.
“Initially, I always wanted to adopt,” said Holly, a fourth-grade teacher at Lincoln. “Early on, we found out we couldn’t have children. We wanted to eventually adopt anyway, so we jumped to adoption. It felt like it was what God wanted us to do. It’s been a blessing.”
At first, the Grossmans considered adopting from South Korea, but a meeting they went to was mainly about adopting from China.
“When we left, we felt God was telling us that’s where we should go,” she said.
It was easy as far as what to expect, Holly said. But, when they started the process they expected it to take nine to 12 months and it took five years. Holly attributed that to everyone “jumping on the bandwagon” and wanting to adopt from China.
Jeremy and Nikki Brandt also were told they wouldn’t have any children. The week they signed the papers to adopt Ian from Korea, Nikki found out she was pregnant. This was three or four years after trying to conceive without any luck.
Ian was 6-1/2 months when they adopted him. He’s now 9.
“God had a plan for us to have Ian, and then have others (Kai and Lia),” Nikki said.
Barry Andrew and his wife, Joye, a Jefferson Elementary first-grade teacher, have children, but are in the process of adopting a brother and sister from Haiti. They haven’t met them yet, though they’ve seen their pictures. Hopefully by this time next year, Barry said, they will have them home with them.
“For us, it’s Biblical,” Barry said. “James 1-27 tells us to take care of the orphans and widows.”
Four years ago, they considered adoption but it “wasn’t time,” he said.
“God did a lot of work in my heart to change my heart to match my wife’s,” he said.
Harrison teacher aid Tami Burritt adopted Nadiya, 16, from the Ukraine, and Jonathan, 8, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Tami said her family hosted Ukrainian students for a few years. She got tired of hosting students and wanted “one to keep,” she said. She hooked up with MLJ Adoption in Indianapolis. She spent eight weeks in the Ukraine and five months to process all the paperwork that was necessary. Nadiya has now been with the Burritt family for going on five years.
“It’s been really good,” Nadiya said. “I’ve got to admit it was frustrating at first. I didn’t know the language at first. Once I started getting to know the language, it became more enjoyable.”
Nadiya now can speak Ukrainian, Russian and English, and is learning Spanish.
Tami said a couple in California originally had Jonathan, but after three weeks decided it wasn’t going to work. The Burritts wanted another child, so when the agency offered Jonathan, Tami said they agreed to take him.
Jonathan likes his new home.
“I found a lot of friends and I like the food and it’s fun. I get to play football and I get to do sports,” he said.[[In-content Ad]]
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What they found exceeded their dreams.
Wednesday afternoon, some of those families gathered for a group photo and to tell their stories.
There are about 25 faculty members at WCS whose families have adopted.
David Hoffert, WCS chief academic officer, said, “The importance of this is our mission statement, ‘to inspire and equip all students to continuously acquire and apply knowledge and skills while pursuing their dreams and enriching the lives of others.’ These kids not only had their lives enriched, but also the lives of the parents and the school community have been enriched.”
David would know. He and his wife, Rachael, adopted two boys from Ethiopia, Robinson, 6, and Roosevelt, 2.
“We were walking out of church one day. The message was ‘Big World, Little Me.’ Our son, (Ryun), was 2 years old at the time. It hit us we needed to adopt so we went to the agency the next day,” David recalled.
Ethiopia was a new track for international adoptions. The Hofferts looked at some pictures and knew it was the place to go. Nine months later, they were in Ethiopia.
Rachael remembers bringing Robinson home. He was very malnourished, like the starving children shown on television.
“We knew we’d find ourselves back in Ethiopia. We just watched the doors open and close again,” David said.
The second adoption took approximately three years, but they brought Roosevelt home last year.
“I think it’s good to have two brothers from the same country,” Ryun said.
Rachael said the neat thing about WCS is that the teachers are open to celebrating the heritage of these children.
David agreed, noting how welcoming the community as a whole is to adoption.
“It’s taught us so much. When we went to Ethiopia the first time, our thinking was we were going to change the world. The fact is, the world changed us,” David said.
He said they came back changed because they saw how the world really works. Thousands of children are malnourished and in need of adoption. In countries like Ethiopia, Rachael said, there’s famine, drought and diseases like HIV and AIDS. She said they came back more compassionate because of the children.
“We hope to teach them as much as they taught us,” David concluded.
WCS 2013 Teacher of the Year Andy Bass and his wife, Dawn-Marie, have four children. Their oldest, Anjali, is 14 and adopted from India. Twelve-year-old Jacob was adopted from Ghana. Both have hearing impairments, but the Bass family knew that before adopting them.
Jacob also is a rescued slave.
“He lost his hearing in slavery so he wears hearing aids. We adopted him because he was hearing impaired and I’m an audiologist,” Dawn-Marie stated.
She said they’re in the process of adopting a boy, Christian, from Ghana who took care of Jacob while they were slaves.
“When you’re a slave, if you can’t hear, you get beaten. Christian was Jacob’s ears so he knew what to do and he didn’t get in trouble. Those boys need to be together. They’re not brothers, but they’re like family. We just love our family,” said Dawn-Marie.
The Bass family doesn’t know how long Jacob was a slave, but he was rescued at 8 years old, and he became a part of their family at 10.
Andy said there have been challenges along the way, but God has taken care of them.
Dawn-Marie added there are 7,000 to 10,000 children in slavery in Ghana. Touch A Life Foundation rescues the kids, and she encouraged people to visit their website at www.touchalifekids.org
Adopting children from Haiti started about three decades ago for the Neff family.
Madison Elementary teacher Honey Lou Neff adopted her son, Lenny, 30 years ago from Haiti.
“My kids fell in love with him. We went down twice a year. My kids kept asking if we could bring him home. There was a special bond with him. We believe it’s God’s plan. It’s meant to be. It’s a blessing,” Honey Lou said.
Her daughter, Edgewood Middle School teacher Veronica Helser, and Veronica’s husband Ryan, adopted two children from Haiti, Jacne, 16, and Loundia, 11.
“We do a lot of work in Haiti,” Veronica said. “... We met them six years ago. We just fell in love with them immediately.”
Haiti requires at least one adopting parent to be 35 years old. As soon as Ryan turned 35, the adoption paperwork was filed in Haiti. Every time they returned to Haiti, they visited the children. The adoption became final in April 2012.
“I was very excited because I have known the children for five years. It’s exciting to finally bring them back to the U.S.,” Honey Lou said.
“Hopefully, you set out to bless people, to help people, but they become the huge blessing in your life,” Veronica said. “They helped start our family.”
Along with the adoption of Jacne and Loundia, Veronica also gave birth to Brayden within the last year.
“It was really good. I was excited about it, to meet my new family,” Loundia said. She added she felt very welcomed into her new home.
In July, she went back with her new family to Haiti. She feels comfortable there and here, but noticed Haiti looks a lot smaller than before.
God willing, Veronica said they hope to adopt again.
Willie and Jennifer Bradley adopted Max, 13, from Haiti, but neither one ever had any plans on adopting any children.
Jennifer, who works in the special needs department at Warsaw Community High School, went on a missions trip with Touch Of Life Church in 2010. During the trip, she felt her heart was in the wrong place.
“I kept praying to God for a connection. Why was I there?” she said.
The next morning, she got off the bus and Max was standing in a corner by himself. He had helped her the previous day. She felt God had singled Max out for her. At first, she said, maybe she was just supposed to sponsor him through his school. But it felt more than that. Max has a very sweet spirit. Returning to the United States, Jennifer couldn’t forget about Max. She wanted to adopt him.
At first, Willie said no. “I had no intentions of adopting Max or a child period,” Willie said. “I didn’t see how that was going to work financially. For me, it was all selfish reasons. Through prayer, God speaks in different ways and he shed light on the situation.”
On March 15, 2012, Max came home with the Bradleys. He still makes contact with his family in Haiti, through phone calls and photos. On spring back, he’s going back to visit Haiti.
“It was very hard to do it,” Max said of the change, but he’s learning and he has good teachers at Edgewood.
Local resident and Haitian Frank Courtois has been very instrumental through the whole process, Jennifer said. Besides translation assistance, he also makes sure Max knows of his heritage.
Special education teacher Pam Vosler and her husband Marc didn’t think they were going to be able to have children, so they started researching adoption. They decided to adopt from China because their ages – 45 and 49 respectively – wouldn’t be a factor.
Then Pam got pregnant with their son, Max. But they pressed on with the adoption, which took three years.
“I felt like we started a journey before Max and I didn’t want to let it go. I wanted to follow through with the commitment,” Pam said.
China matched them up with Lucy, who was only 10 months old at the time.
“They did a great job,” Marc said.
Lucy is musical, and the Vosler family is, too, Pam noted.
Neena Burgher is a special education teacher at Lincoln Elementary. She and her husband adopted two children from Haiti, thanks to the Helser family, who they do a lot of missions work with in Haiti.
The Burgher boys are biological brothers.
“We didn’t have kids, so we don’t know what it’s like to do one at a time,” she joked. “It felt like it was what God wanted us to do.”
Roger and Holly Grossman adopted Hannah from China, bringing her home in October 2010.
“Initially, I always wanted to adopt,” said Holly, a fourth-grade teacher at Lincoln. “Early on, we found out we couldn’t have children. We wanted to eventually adopt anyway, so we jumped to adoption. It felt like it was what God wanted us to do. It’s been a blessing.”
At first, the Grossmans considered adopting from South Korea, but a meeting they went to was mainly about adopting from China.
“When we left, we felt God was telling us that’s where we should go,” she said.
It was easy as far as what to expect, Holly said. But, when they started the process they expected it to take nine to 12 months and it took five years. Holly attributed that to everyone “jumping on the bandwagon” and wanting to adopt from China.
Jeremy and Nikki Brandt also were told they wouldn’t have any children. The week they signed the papers to adopt Ian from Korea, Nikki found out she was pregnant. This was three or four years after trying to conceive without any luck.
Ian was 6-1/2 months when they adopted him. He’s now 9.
“God had a plan for us to have Ian, and then have others (Kai and Lia),” Nikki said.
Barry Andrew and his wife, Joye, a Jefferson Elementary first-grade teacher, have children, but are in the process of adopting a brother and sister from Haiti. They haven’t met them yet, though they’ve seen their pictures. Hopefully by this time next year, Barry said, they will have them home with them.
“For us, it’s Biblical,” Barry said. “James 1-27 tells us to take care of the orphans and widows.”
Four years ago, they considered adoption but it “wasn’t time,” he said.
“God did a lot of work in my heart to change my heart to match my wife’s,” he said.
Harrison teacher aid Tami Burritt adopted Nadiya, 16, from the Ukraine, and Jonathan, 8, from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Tami said her family hosted Ukrainian students for a few years. She got tired of hosting students and wanted “one to keep,” she said. She hooked up with MLJ Adoption in Indianapolis. She spent eight weeks in the Ukraine and five months to process all the paperwork that was necessary. Nadiya has now been with the Burritt family for going on five years.
“It’s been really good,” Nadiya said. “I’ve got to admit it was frustrating at first. I didn’t know the language at first. Once I started getting to know the language, it became more enjoyable.”
Nadiya now can speak Ukrainian, Russian and English, and is learning Spanish.
Tami said a couple in California originally had Jonathan, but after three weeks decided it wasn’t going to work. The Burritts wanted another child, so when the agency offered Jonathan, Tami said they agreed to take him.
Jonathan likes his new home.
“I found a lot of friends and I like the food and it’s fun. I get to play football and I get to do sports,” he said.[[In-content Ad]]
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